Charity tree collection helps bolster coastal defences

At the beginning of January, Charlie Biddlecombe and Declan Farrimond, who run Nuff Hire, a plant and events hire company loaning out the likes of mini diggers, generators and fencing, collected Christmas trees from across the Fylde in return for a £10 donation to Rosemere Cancer Foundation.

Instead of chipping the trees, they donated them to the Fylde Sand Dunes Project, a partnership between The Wildlife Trust for Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside and Fylde and Blackpool Councils.

Funded by the Environment Agency, the project is working to improve and grow local dunes as a natural sea defence. Charlie explained: “The trees we collected are being buried in the sand on the foreshore to help build new sand dunes and improve coastal defences, as well as make the dunes a better place for wildlife and people to visit.

“This was our first year of running the scheme. We’d like to thank everyone who supported it. As it’s gone well, we’re planning on repeating it next year and will also be selling Christmas trees this December, which we then hope to collect in the January.”

Yvonne Stott, community and events fundraiser for Rosemere Cancer Foundation, said: “We’re immensely grateful to Charlie and Declan of Nuff Hire for involving us in such an environmentally sound fundraising scheme. It’s a great win for us, the sand dunes project team and for home owners with Christmas trees they wanted to get rid of. It’s brilliant all round.”

Rosemere Cancer Foundation works to bring world class cancer treatments and services to cancer patients from throughout Lancashire and South Cumbria being treated at Rosemere Cancer Centre, the region’s specialist cancer treatment and radiotherapy centre at the Royal Preston Hospital, and also at another eight local hospital cancer units across the two counties, including that at Blackpool Victoria Hospital.

The charity funds cutting-edge equipment, clinical research, staff training and innovative services and initiatives that the NHS cannot afford in order to make patients’ cancer journey more effective, comfortable and stress-free. For further information on its work, including how to make a donation, visit www.rosemere.org.uk